


daylight (it's golden)

by Anonymous



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Botfighting (Big Hero 6), Don't Underestimate Hiro Hamada, F/M, Female Hiro Hamada, Genius Hiro Hamada, Hiro Hamada & Tadashi Hamada are Not Related, Hiro and Tadashi flirt but that's all, I'm just tagging underage to be safe, Implied Eventual Hiro Hamada/Tadashi Hamada, Implied Eventual Underage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:14:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28376037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Hiro Hamada is a child genius, a skilled botfighter, and a Freshman at SFIT. She's also sixteen years old, grieving the loss of the woman she considered to be her older sister, and lost in the world around her. A tour of the Robotics Department at SFIT isn't guaranteed to set her on the right path, but it might be the first step she needs to figure out her place in the world.
Relationships: Hiro Hamada & Tadashi Hamada
Kudos: 9
Collections: Anonymous





	daylight (it's golden)

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into the BH6 fandom! I hope you all like it!

Hiro knew that there were a lot of things that were wrong with her. She was too smart, had too much bravado, too much false confidence. She was bisexual and coming out tripled the amount of bullying she faced. She was too young to have accomplished so much. She graduated high school just shy of the age of fifteen, took a gap year to try and bridge the age gap between her and her peers before entering university, and enrolled at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology at the age of sixteen. However, while her official driver's license may prove her to be sixteen years of age, there was still the inescapable fact that Hiro had the general height and build of a thirteen-year-old girl. Puberty was not kind to her, growing her to 5'0" and 95 lbs. before giving up on her entirely. Her breasts never grew past an A-cup, and she had no curves whatsoever. Just on the line between healthy and underweight, Hiro always _planned_ on gaining some weight. She originally aspired to put on the weight in muscle, but after many failed workout routines, Hiro settled for putting it on in fat. Unfortunately, that didn't work either. No matter what she did, what alarms or reminders she set to get himself to eat three square meals a day, Hiro would inevitably get distracted and skip a meal. One skipped meal let to another, and before Hiro knew it, she was surviving on a diet of granola bars and coffee as she spent her time designing her bots and working on increasing the speed of the motorcycle she used to get out of danger when she pissed off the wrong botfighter.

Hiro met Abby Callaghan when she was twelve years old. Hiro had just tested out of middle school and had been approved by her school district to fast-track high school, finishing it in two years instead of the traditional four. Abby was eighteen to Hiro's twelve, though both were in similar situations. Both were female botfighters in a male-dominated (as well as underground and illegal) sport. Both were too smart for their own good. Both were using botfighting to cope with feelings of inadequacy - Abby had been denied acceptance to her dream university and Hiro had been denied friendship by her peers. Most importantly to Hiro, Abby was her first real friend that she had met off of the internet.

Abby taught Hiro how to defend herself, teaching the young girl the principals of streetfighting. She explained to Hiro that people would underestimate her, and she taught Hiro to utilize others' perceptions of her to her advantage. Abby was the older sister that Hiro never had, as well as the mother figure Hiro always longed for. She walked Hiro through her first crush, her first bra-fitting, her first period.

Abby eventually grew out of botfighting - she transferred into her dream university, San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, after an exceptional freshman year at San Fransokyo University of Science. However, Abby never grew out of her friendship with Hiro.

Tragedy struck when, three weeks after Hiro graduated from high school, Abby died. Her grief-stricken father, Robert Callahan, relayed some of the details of Abby's death to Hiro. The rest, Hiro looked up online. From what she gathered, the details of Abby's death were: Abby was chosen as one of the beta pilots for Krei Tech Teleportation, a privilege she had earned through an essay contest sponsored by the company. Supposedly, the technology was 100% safe. It had gone through rigorous safety testing. Abby wasn't even one of the first to test it; she was the one hundred and twenty-third passenger to experience the teleportation technology. Nothing should have gone wrong. But something did go wrong, and when they fixed the machinery and Abby's pod returned, it returned empty of life.

Hiro mourned Abby's death for weeks, shredding her acceptance letter to SFIT. How could she go to that university, Abby's favorite place in the world, when the pain was still so fresh. Hiro had promised Abby long ago that she would make the most of her potential, but Hiro needed time. So she took a year off, getting a part-time job doing mindless menial labor in data entry during the day and botfighting at night. Eventually, she mustered the willpower to re-apply to SFIT. They accepted her promptly, eager to have a certified genius as one of their students.

Two days before her first day of class at SFIT, Hiro went botfighting. She slipped through the dark alleyways of San Fransokyo, a look of pure concentration on her face as she listened for footsteps following her. She had won two botfighting circuits already that night, but her second one had gone south right after she took the pot, so she had to make a break for it. Unfortunately, her bike was stashed in an alleyway six blocks west of the fight. Hiro longed for the days when Abby was her getaway driver, and the thought brought tears to her eyes.

Hearing footsteps behind her, Hiro sped up. She ran down the alleyway, then darted across the street, praying that it would be free of traffic. It wasn't. A red Vespa nearly slammed right into Hiro as she tumbled out of the way, her knee slamming painfully into the ground. She instantly regretted her decision to wear a skirt and tights - while it helped in leading her opponents to underestimate her, the material of the tights provided no protection in the fall, and she could feel blood begin to spill from the abrasion. The driver swerved left before deftly getting his vehicle back under control. "Hey! Are you hurt?" the driver shouted, but Hiro was already sprinting away, the pain in her leg overshadowed by her fear of being caught.

Hiro seemed to have lost her tail after that. She got back to her motorcycle in one piece and began the drive home. As she passed by the spot of her near-brush with death, where the red Vespa almost made her a smear on the road, she noticed a black baseball cap laying on the pavement. The Vespa's owner must have dropped it, Hiro noted. She picked up the cap and examined it. Embroidered on the front of the baseball cap in gold were the letters SFIT. _What were the odds of that?_ Hiro wondered. _The man whose vehicle I nearly had a head-on collision with is going to the same university as me._

_No sense in wasting a perfectly good baseball cap._ Hiro put the baseball cap on and continued her drive home.

Julia, Hiro's full-time nanny was asleep on the couch, in front of a television still playing some mindless reality television show. Hiro limped past her, not bothering to be quiet. She and Julia had a deal - Julia would allow Hiro to leave the house whenever she wanted, and in return, Hiro wouldn't make Julia do any actual work in babysitting her.

A normal family wouldn't have a live-in nanny. A normal family would have two parents working 9 to 5 jobs, coming home every night to take care of their 2.5 children. Hiro's family was anything but normal. Her mother died of complications due to childbirth when Hiro was exactly 47 minutes old. Her father was the CEO of a major corporation based in Japan, and thus spent most of his time abroad. Hiro stayed at home with Julia, a doctorate student at SFIT, who had better things to worry about than babysitting but could use the money and the rent-free apartment ten minutes from her university. Julia was fine doing household chores and cooking meals but considered keeping Hiro out of trouble way above her pay grade (an accurate analysis. Not even Hiro's father could keep her out of trouble).

"You're home late," Julia said through a yawn.

"I made almost a thousand dollars," Hiro bragged. Of course, she wouldn't need the money if her father would just open up her trust fund to her, instead of giving her a meager twenty dollars every month as her allowance. She needed a lot more than that to pay for her botfighting supplies.

"Glad you didn't get yourself killed. Or worse, arrested."

"Your Hermione impression could use some work," Hiro commented.

Julia mumbled out a rebuttal as she rolled over and went back to sleep.

Hiro appreciated the constants in her life. Julia's disinterest in parenting her. The distance - both physical and emotional - that her father placed between them. The fact that her only friend was gone forever. Those were the things that never let her down.

Hiro was too exhausted to take a proper shower, instead simply rinsing out the wound on her knee. It took fifteen minutes to pick all the gravel out, and ten more minutes after that to bandage it properly. _Next time I'm wearing jeans,_ Hiro decided.

The next day Hiro woke up bright and early, ready to prepare for her first day of university. She had already been given her schedule, downloaded all of her syllabi, and wrote every minute detail into her planner. She had promised Abby that she would live up to her potential. Abby's death had only convinced Hiro that she needed to work harder. She wanted Abby's legacy to live on through her.

Hiro started her day with a shower, working a little bit of product into her hair until her unruly curls finally settled down into loose spirals. She got dressed in a short-sleeved white t-shirt and a black skirt, pulling on her leather jacket to protect her from the wind that came hand-in-hand with riding a motorcycle. Completing the outfit were her black combat boots that she convinced Julia to give to her when the older girl grew out of them. Hiro thought that they made her look older, but Julia teased Hiro that she looked like a child playing dress-up in her parents' clothes when she wore the boots and the leather jacket.

Julia was in the kitchen when Hiro came downstairs, making breakfast for the both of them. The smell of pancakes was mouthwatering, Hiro's stomach letting out a loud grumble. She hadn't eaten anything besides energy drinks since lunch the day prior, as she had spent all afternoon and evening preparing for a night of botfighting. Hiro piled her plate high with pancakes and doused them in a liberal amount of syrup. After breakfast, Julia pushed Hiro out the door with a bagged lunch - a turkey and provolone sandwich on Italian bread, alongside five dollars from the household food budget so that Hiro could buy herself the sugar she so desperately needed. Hiro predicted that she would spend all four years of university surviving off of soda and gummy bears out of a campus vending machine. Though Hiro and Julia didn't have much in common, they still got along well. Julia went to some lengths to get to know Hiro, and she treated Hiro well, feeding the younger girl when Hiro forgot to do that herself. 

Hiro left the house in a good mood. She drove her motorcycle to campus, more eager about getting out of the house than about actually touring the college campus. There was a slight chill in the air; summer was fading away to fall. Soon, the leaves would be changing, and her university classes would be in full swing. Hiro parked her motorcycle in the on-campus parking garage and started walking around. Professor Callaghan had promised to give Hiro a tour of the science labs, and Hiro was eager to take him up on the offer. Professor Callaghan was the only other person who knew about her promise to Abby, and he had promised Hiro that he would give her all the tools at his disposal to help her keep that promise.

"Welcome to the Institute, Hiro," Callaghan greeted.

Hiro replied, "It's nice to see you again, Professor Callaghan."

"It's nice to see you too. I'm glad to know that my robotics department is receiving a prodigy like you."

Hiro smiled through the compliment. "I'm excited to tour the robotics department. I'm sure you have a lot to show me today."

"My students are some of the best in the city," Callaghan bragged. "You'll fit right in."

Hiro followed him through the halls of the science labs, her excitement for the upcoming four years of her life at SFIT growing more and more as Callaghan showed her all of the projects that the students were working on. Machines that could detect motion and respond to stimuli in milliseconds were playing a fast-paced game of table tennis. Rocket-propelled boots lifted a cat off the ground. A remote-controlled car navigated over rough terrain using rotating feet for wheels. Hiro took it all in, amazed at the innovation. Prior to her tour, she had only ever seen Abby's invention, and it was based on computer programming rather than in robotics.

"So this is what the school is all about. Science, technology, innovation." Hiro's wide eyes took everything in. "I think I'll fit in here."

"This is the final lab of our tour." Callaghan gestured to a pair of double doors at the end of the hall. "I'm excited to show you this one. It's where my most talented students work, as the top four students of every year get their own labs to work on their projects. It's a coveted privilege, as the main labs are generally very loud during the day."

Just as Callaghan was about to open the doors, a student from down the hall called out his name. "Professor Callaghan," her voice was shrill and anxious. "There's been an incident in the senior labs."

Callaghan let out an exasperated breath. "I have to go take care of this. You go on ahead, Hiro. I'm sure that my students will be eager to show you what they're working on." Callaghan left her, following after his panicked student.

Hiro sighed as she turned to face the double doors. She didn't want to interact one-on-one with any of the students today. Having the Head of the Robotics Department lead her around was nice, because everyone kept a respectful distance from Callaghan, not wanting to bother him while he was in the middle of his tour. Entering a lab alone was something completely different. She would have to actually talk to the students at SFIT.

Before she opened the door, Hiro took a deep breath and steeled her nervous expression into something resembling confidence. If there was one thing that botfighting taught her, it was to never show fear. Any sign of weakness could get you killed - or worse.

Hiro pushed open the door, took one step into the labs, and was almost flattened by a girl on a yellow bike. "Heads up!"

Hiro jumped back, pressing herself against the wall as the bike skidded to a stop. _No fear, no fear, no fear,_ she reminded herself. Hiro sauntered up to the bike, already hung up by its owner. She examined the wheels, curious to see how it worked. "Electro-mag suspension?"

"Hey! Who are you?" snapped the bike owner, her dark-tinted helmet preventing Hiro from making out any facial features.

"I'm-"

Hiro's explanation was interrupted by the voice of a young man walking up behind the bike owner. "Go Go. She's just a kid. No need to yell at her."

Go Go pulled her helmet off. "I don't care if she's 'just a kid', she needs to watch where she's going. I almost ran right into her."

The young man turned to Hiro. "You need to be more careful. The science labs are a dangerous place to be unsupervised. My name is Tadashi. Are you lost?"

Hiro narrowed her eyes. "I'm not lost. I'm here on a tour of the labs."

"School field trip? I didn't know they were running one today. Did you get separated from your tour group?"

Tadashi was very quickly getting on Hiro's nerves. It was clear that he saw her and immediately assumed that she was some prepubescent schoolgirl, an assumption that she very much despised. Although she might have looked like she could still be in middle school, she was sixteen years old and a genius. She didn't enjoy being patronized. 

"I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be." Hiro stepped away from the bike (though she was interested in having a conversation with Go Go about how the older girl managed to fit her bike with electro-mag suspension) and started walking through the lab.

"Are you sure?" Tadashi tagged along behind her. 

Hiro didn't answer him. Even though Hiro knew that Callaghan wanted her to get along with his favorite students, the bitterness that rose in her every time Tadashi used his patronizing tone of voice clouded Hiro's judgment, preventing her from thinking logically and explaining herself.

Hiro walked up to the next lab station, where a man wearing a green sweater, white gloves, and yellow safety glasses was adjusting the alignment of two blue glass poles. Hiro deciding to wait a little while longer before explaining herself. She wanted Tadashi and Go Go to feel ashamed of the way they were treating one of their peers, so she decided to push the limits of what they would tolerate. She brazenly walked right up to the twin pieces of blue glass that a student was working on, before halting suddenly, the toes of her boots just about touching the line drawn on the floor. She clearing her throat to get the attention of the student, who was completely absorbed in his work.

"Whoa," he cautioned. "Do not move. Behind the line, please."

"Of course." Hiro backed up an inch, moving her combat boots off of the line. "What are you working on?"

The student looked over her head, clearly making eye contact with Tadashi, who was standing right behind her. Hiro glanced over her shoulder and saw Tadashi shrug. She watched as the student's eyes grew more confused. He turned to her and introduced himself. "I'm Wasabi. Prepare to be amazed."

Hiro didn't appreciate his tone of voice. She didn't like when people treated her like a child, incapable of understanding science, and able to be pacified by explanations that made technology sound like magic tricks and gimmicks, rather than actual scientific theory. Science and technology were Hiro's passions because she wanted to understand them. She wanted to pick every piece of technology up and understand how it worked. She wouldn't ever be content, because there would always be something else to discover.

Wasabi took a step back, grabbing an apple off of the table behind him. "Catch." He tossed her the apple, but as soon as it came between the two blue poles, the apple separated into fine sheets.

"Wow. Laser-induced plasma?" Hiro guessed.

"Yeah," Wasabi's eyes raised at her correct guess, obviously shocked that someone so young was able to understand such complex science. "With a little magnetic confinement for ultra-precision. Who are you?"

"My name is Hiro." Hiro didn't stick around to see his reaction. She turned to find the fourth student in the labs, hoping that maybe one of the four students wouldn't entirely underestimate her.

Hiro didn't have to look very far to find the fourth student. "Excuse me! Coming through!" The blonde girl barreled right past Hiro, pushing a massive ball of what appeared to be tungsten carbide. Hiro was impressed. She was wearing four-inch heels that to anyone else would be impractical, but that she was perfectly capable of running in. Once she got her ball into position, the girl flopped backward over the ball looking up at Hiro and Tadashi, who was still following Hiro throughout the lab. "Tadashi! Oh, and who are you?" 

"My name is Hiro. I'm here on a tour of the science labs."

The girl didn't seem at all phased by Hiro's young age. "Perfect timing, Hiro!" She gently pulled Hiro a few feet back from the ball. Hiro knew better than to interfere with the experiment, but couldn't help herself from reaching out and brushing her fingers over the ball. 

"That’s a whole lot of tungsten carbide," Hiro commented, watching for the girl's reaction.

The girl didn't even flinch. In fact, she only seemed more enthused. "400 pounds of it! Come here, come here, come here." She led Hiro over to a complex system of tubing and vats. "You’re going to love this. A dash of perchloric acid, a smidge of cobalt, a hint of hydrogen peroxide, super-heated to 500 Kelvin, and…" She put a spray nozzle on the chemical mixture and started spraying the ball with the mixture, then set the color with a jolt of electricity to the ball. "Chemistry at work! It’s pretty great, huh?"

"It’s so pink."

"Here’s the best part. You might want to take a few steps back." One tap to the ball and the pink paint exploded around them.

"Woah."

"I know, right? Chemical metal embrittlement."

"Not bad, Honey Lemon, but I think Hiro has exceeded her stay here. Children aren't allowed to walk around unsupervised in the labs. I'll walk her out of here, and have her call her parents." Tadashi was frowning, giving Hiro a stern look.

Hiro crossed her arms over her chest, glaring right back at him.

"Hiro." At that moment, Callaghan chose to enter the room. "I see that you're already getting your tour of the lab. What do you think?"

Hiro turned to Callaghan. "I can see why you referred to them as your prodigy students. I've never seen anything like this at an undergraduate lab before."

Callaghan nodded. "I expect that I'll be seeing the same from you within the next year."

"Wait?" Tadashi looked bewildered. "Hiro is...?"

"A freshman at the Institute, as of tomorrow." Hiro felt a flash of satisfaction as she saw the shock on all four faces. "The perks of being a child genius."

"But you-"

"I recently turned sixteen years old, for your information. I graduated high school at the age of fourteen. Professor Callaghan is a friend of mine, so he offered to walk me around the labs so that I could get a feel for them."

"Did everyone give you a demonstration?" Callaghan asked. He seemed to sense that there was a tension in the air, and Hiro theorized that he would be berating his favorite students as soon as she left the room. Callaghan had been protective of her ever since Abby died, trying to cultivate the little piece of Abby's spirit that survived through Hiro.

"I've seen everyone's work except for Tadashi, whose project I don't see anywhere in the room." Hiro glanced around, noting that his area in the main lab seemed bare. 

"I - uh -" Tadashi stammered. "I primarily use my private office for work. I prefer the peace and quiet."

"Then let's go to your private office. I'm interested in seeing what you're working on."

Tadashi led them into his office, grabbing a small device off of the table. "Just press your finger against this."

Hiro pressed the tip of her finger against what she assumed was a fingerprint scanner, until it zapped her with a sharp jolt of electricity. "Ow!" She stumbled back, yanking her arm away. "What was that for?"

"You'll see. This is what I’ve been working on."

At that moment, the red box in the corner was rapidly inflating into some sort of white vinyl robot. "Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. I was alerted to the need for medical attention when you said, 'Ow.'"

"A robotic nurse." Hiro took a step forward to examine Baymax closer.

"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?"

"One." Hiro started circling Baymax, taking in all the details.

"Please stand still. I will scan you now... Scan complete. You have a second-degree abrasion on your right knee. I suggest an anti-bacterial spray and a bandage."

"Are you alright, Hiro?" Callaghan asked. 

Hiro resisted the urge to duck her head in embarrassment. "I tripped while taking a walk last night and skinned my knee. I've already bandaged it, don't worry."

Tadashi looked concerned. "Baymax utilizes a top of the line anti-bacterial spray, and you're probably due for a change of bandages. Plus, don't you want to see Baymax in action?"

Arguing further would only lead Callaghan to suspect that Hiro had begun botfighting again. She had lied to Callaghan right after Abby's death, promising that she would stop for his own peace of mind. "Alright." Hiro tugged down the leg of her tights past her knee and unwound the bandages. She was relieved to see that the wound still looked clean - she had been a little nervous that she had missed a piece of gravel.

"What's in the spray, by the way?"

"The primary ingredient is bacitracin," Baymax reported.

"What if I was allergic? Do you have any alternatives?" Hiro directed the question at Tadashi, but it was Baymax who answered.

"You are not allergic to bacitracin. You do have a severe allergy to peanuts. I have three different types of anti-bacterial sprays, in case of a situation in which one cannot be used."

Baymax sprayed Hiro's leg and rewrapped the wound with fresh bandages that he produced from his red box. "You have been a good girl. Have a lollipop." 

Hiro rolled her eyes as she took the lollipop out of Baymax's hand, sticking it in the pocket of her skirt.

Hiro turned to Tadashi. "Not bad. You’ve done some serious coding on this thing, huh?"

"Baymax is programmed with over 10,000 medical procedures, all of which are contained in this chip." Tadashi pressed a button on Baymax's front and a port opened up, revealing a chip.

"Interesting," murmured Hiro as she started inspecting Baymax further. "He's made of vinyl?"

"Yeah. I was going for the non-threatening, huggable kind of look."

"He sort of resembles a walking marshmallow. No offense," Hiro directed her last comment to Baymax himself, trying to gauge exactly how he followed conversations.

"I am a robot, I cannot be offended," Baymax responded without missing a beat.

Hiro continued her thorough examination. "Hyperspectral cameras?"

"Yep."

"Titanium skeleton?"

"Carbon fiber," Tadashi corrected.

"Right, even lighter. By the way, those are some killer actuators. Where did you get them?"

"Machined them right here, in-house."

Hiro's eyes lit up at the knowledge of all the technology that SFIT could provide for her. "Really?"

"Yup. He can lift 1,000 pounds."

"No way." Hiro looked at Baymax with newfound respect. The robot might have looked like a walking marshmallow, but Tadashi had built him to be tougher than he looked. "What kind of battery does Baymax use?"

"Lithium-ion."

"You know, supercapacitors would charge way faster," Hiro mentioned. "Either way, Baymax is an incredible robot. Consider me suitably impressed."

"He’s going to help a lot of people someday," said Tadashi. "Of course, he isn't finished yet. I still have two more years at the Institue, which means two more years of fine-tuning every little detail."

"By the time you graduate, I'm certain that you'll be ready to put Baymax on the market," Callaghan interrupted the conversation. "As one of the most talented students I have ever had the opportunity to teach, I have high hopes for you, Tadashi."

"Thank you, Professor Callaghan." There was a glint of pride in Tadashi's eyes as he took in Callaghan's praise.

"When will Baymax deactivate?" asked Hiro. "Is there a certain amount of time that he stays active after he finishes administering medicine, or can he analyze situations to know when he is no longer needed?"

"I will deactivate when you tell me that you are satisfied with your care," Baymax informed her.

"Well then, I’m satisfied with my care." 

Baymax deflated back into his case, having served his purpose. Hiro was impressed. She had never seen anything like Baymax before.

"Professor Callaghan! We can't get the fire to extinguish!" a shout came from outside of Tadashi's office.

Callaghan rolled his eyes. "I have to go deal with that. Tadashi, I trust that you can walk Hiro out."

"Of course, sir."

"Hiro, thank you for allowing me to show you around. If you have any further questions about the Institute, I'm sure Tadashi will be able to answer them."

"Of course, sir."

"I'll see you both tomorrow." Callaghan left in a hurry, towards the hallway that was slightly smokier than it was twenty minutes ago.

"Is there anything else you'd like to see?" asked Tadashi.

Hiro shook her head. "I think I've seen it all."

Tadashi walked her out of the building, taking her through a maintenance hallway to avoid the smoke.

When they got to the exit, Tadashi stopped. "I wanted to apologize-"

"No need. I'm used to it." Hiro brushed off the apology.

Tadashi shook his head. "Hiro, you deserve an apology. I'm sorry that I underestimated you. It was wrong of me to assume that you didn't belong here at the Institute."

Hiro nodded. "I accept your apology." Brushing a stray curl behind her ear, Hiro added, "However, I expect that the next time I show up to your labs unannounced, you won't follow me around like a babysitter."

"Next time?" Tadashi asked, confused.

"I want to see your continued progress on Baymax. And I want to ask Go Go how she managed to fit her bike with electro-mag suspension."

"Of course you can come around again."

"Good. I want her to teach me how to fit it onto my own bike." 

"You can drive?" Tadashi questioned.

Hiro comically rolled her eyes, wanting Tadashi to know just how ridiculous she found his question to be. "Yes, I can drive. As part of my accelerated education, I was allowed to test for my driver's license after I graduated high school at fourteen."

"I suppose that's another thing I'll have to apologize for." Tadashi rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish.

"You'll have to work a little harder on not underestimating me. Geniuses come in all shapes and sizes, you know."

"I would like to request that we could perhaps start over. I'm Tadashi Hamada, nineteen years old and an incoming junior at the Institute."

"It's nice to meet you, Tadashi. I'm Hiro Masaki, sixteen years old and an incoming freshman at the Institute. I'm a certified genius, who is legally certified to drive my bike. My specialty is nanotechnology."

"It's nice to meet you too, Hiro."

Hiro pushed open the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."

A few minutes later Hiro was on her bike, flying down the highway at ninety miles an hour. Driving fast was Hiro's version of therapy. It was the best way to clear her head. As soon as the speedometer hit eighty, nothing mattered except the feeling of the wind against her face and the feeling of control. If she hadn't invested all of her free time illegally botfighting, Hiro would put some time and effort into illegally street racing. Unfortunately, the underground street racing community was much more tightly knit than the botfighters. An invitation was needed to get into a street racing match, and they didn't tolerate the dirty tricks that had Hiro winning in her botfighting matches. 

Hiro pulled up to the sidewalk in front of her house and parked her bike, running her fingers through her wind-tangled hair as she walked up through the front door. "Julia, I'm home."

"How was your day?" Julia called back from the living room, where she was typing away at her laptop. Hiro glanced at the screen and saw that Julia was working on her dissertation, a lengthy piece about the treatment of marginalized groups in the media. In the beginning, Hiro had made a valiant effort to ask Julia questions about what she was working on, but eventually, the two had settled into a routine where they didn't talk about schoolwork all that much.

"My day was good. Callaghan gave me a tour of the department. I got to meet a few of the students and see the projects that they were working on. It's all very impressive."

"Sounds great." Julia was distracted, a good thing since Hiro planned on botfighting again that night.

Hiro raced up to her room, put together everything she needed for a night of botfighting into her backpack. Glancing in the mirror, Hiro looked at the girl she had become, trying to figure out whether she was disappointed or pleased. In the mirror, Hiro saw her big dark eyes, her messy black curls, and her soft pale skin. In the mirror, Hiro looked as childish and innocent as everyone assumed. But Hiro knew the truth. She hadn't been a child for a very long while.

Brushing a stray curl behind her ear, Hiro turned away from the mirror. She grabbed a pair of dark sunglasses and the baseball cap she found the night before and put them on. _Child genius by day, seasoned botfighter by night,_ Hiro thought. _It's like I'm two separate people. No one can know more than half of me._

Hiro left the house through the side door, slipping away into the twilight.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was going to be a multi-chapter work, but once I got the first chapter written I realized that I had no motivation to actually finish it. Rather than post the first chapter of a multi-chapter work I never intended to finish, I decided to cut out most (but not all) of the lose threads and turn it into a one-shot instead. I might someday post more chapters, but it's not super likely, unless I get a ton of feedback/support.
> 
> I had a really hard time tagging this because my original plan was for there to be underage between Hiro and Tadashi, but then none of that happened in the final product. But there's still the set-up for an underage relationship so I wasn't really sure how to tag that. Hiro and Tadashi's interactions could definitely be viewed as just platonic but that wasn't their original intention so I wanted to be safe. I think I did a good enough job tagging but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Title is a reference to Daylight by Taylor Swift.
> 
> Kudos, bookmarks, and comments are very much appreciated. Please don't leave any hate in the comment sections!


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